For president - vote 'none of the above'

The 2012 presidential election should be called "2012 No Decision." And just as a baseball pitcher, who can throw nine innings and wind up with a no decision (neither won or lost the game), we should have that for elections as well.

Neither candidates are acceptable for Americans. I, for one, do not feel inspired by either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama.

Many Americans would probably like to have two other people running for president. However, our two choices leave us little solace for the future of this country.

What we need is a no decision. What we need is "none of the above."

Romney is in a pickle, not only with his tax returns, but he cannot decide who will be his vice president. With his trip to the Olympics soon approaching, he'll have to choose either just before the GOP Convention, or standing on the podium, looking stupid as he makes his choice during the convention itself. He's a "no decision" candidate.

In addition, everybody, from the public to the GOP and the Democrats wants him to release more tax returns. Ron Paul said that anyone running for office should be as transparent as possible, and also called for Romney to release his tax returns.

However, Romney feels that releasing his tax returns would only give Team Obama "thousands of pages to find something" to twist its meaning. Romney would rather we not know how deep the rabbit hole goes with his dealings with Bain Capital.

And President Obama can't seem to get out of his own way. Saying that an owner of a business did not create anything, well, isn't un-American as some politicians have said. It is just being pure old uneducated. We see how well the stimulus money, the $4.1 trillion he gave out to those people "who don't create things" worked out. Are you feeling stimulated yet? Well, I'm sure your check is in the mail, somewhere.

And while all the attention is on Romney wanting to hide his tax returns, no one has ever looked at what Obama has been hiding.

After accusing Hillary Clinton in 2008 for not releasing papers from eight years of being the first lady, Obama failed to produce any papers from his eight years in Springfield. All Obama said was they could have been thrown out.

Also, it has been said that Obama refuses to release the names of donations of less than $200 because he accepted illegal foreign contributions.

And let us not forget the birth certificate issue, and medical records. Again in 2008, when Senator John McCain released thousands of pages of medical records, Obama produced a one-page doctor's note. As for his birth certificate, the debate goes on - is it real? Or is it Xerox? And what actually happened to Andrew Breitbart?

Then there is the Khalidi tape, the real White House guest list, meeting lobbyists off-site, and the Fast and Furious documents disappeared almost as fast as the guns did crossing over the Mexican border.

The Potomac two-step is more than just lines from a movie — it's alive and well, with both candidates trying to distract you instead of taking responsibilities for their past. You know, Romney who ruined communities by putting people out of work, and where is Obama really from? Hey may have been doing cocaine ontop of a mountain, but it wasn't in Hawaii.

The way I see it, we need to overhaul our voting system so that the people who are disgusted with all the candidates, can vote for "none of the above."

Good old Monte does not have to actually campaign, but having a group that rallies the charge, and actively seeking votes for "none of the above" would make the 2012 Presidential race attractive. Not only would each candidate need to campaign against each other, they also need to campaign against the "none of the above" crowd.

How I would envision this working is like in the movie "Brewster's Millions." To win the election outright, you need to win by 51 percent of the votes.

If no one wins by 51 percent, then both parties must come up with two new candidates, and they have to campaign again.

However, voting in November in the fourth year would not give this enough time to work. So all campaigning would have to begin at the start of the third year the president is in office, and voting will be on the November of the third year.

This way, if "none of the above" wins, there will still be time for the parties to pick two new people, and then we can have the "normal" election we have today.

We need a way to allow the public to give the candidates a "no decision," just like the pitcher of a game when his team can't keep the lead.

This new system of voting would also help with another of my pet peeves — I, the public, would like to decide who runs for president, and not some committee. Cronyism has no place when selecting who may be the next leader of the free world.

Again, with each party facing a possible "none of the above" winning, maybe candidates will be chosen more carefully. Because by having the ability to make them throw a "no decision," doing it right the first time would be refreshing for a change.

And with the ability to chose someone other than the two candidates, maybe more people will show up to vote, knowing that if they say "none of the above," it would be a vote that would certainly count for something.